James Vincent Fusco

Fusco, James Vincent

James Vincent Fusco. Composer, conductor, b Niagara Falls, Ont,11 Aug 1954, B MUS (Toronto) 1976. He studied with Oskar Morawetz (composition) and Robert Rosevear (conducting). He was associate composer 1979-80 for the Royal Alexandra Theatre. In 1981 he became composer-in-residence with the Niagara Symphony Association, a position he continued to hold in 1991. He was also the music director 1987-90 of the St Catharines-based theatrical group the Carousel Players. His orchestral compositions and pop arrangements have been performed in the USA, Europe, and Canada. In 1983 the Concertino String Quartet premiered three of Fusco's works for string quartet in New York and it premiered a fourth work for string quartet 27 Mar 1984 at the St Lawrence Centre, Toronto. His Sonata for Piano (1984), premiered by Adam Fellegi in 1985 in Budapest as part of a European and USSR tour, was also broadcast by the BBC. Other works by Fusco have been broadcast on CBC radio. His choral work, Sanctus and Benedictus, was premiered by the Niagara Symphony Chorus under Ian Grundy in 1987.

Fusco has written and conducted several family concert-theatre programs and has presented these throughout Ontario, and in British Columbia and the USA. Music for an Immortal Beloved (1985, rev 1990), perhaps his most successful work for orchestra, has been praised for its rich, expressive texture and structural cohesion. Many of Fusco's compositions are polytonal and feature strong, germinal motifs that are melodic and well-developed. His Symphony No. 2 (1984) was commissioned by the City of Niagara Falls to commemorate Ontario's bicentennial. The Niagara Symphony commissioned Passion and Memory (1987) and Music for Celebration (1988) for its 40th anniversary. Fusco's music-theatre work, The Five of Hearts, was given a workshop performance in Toronto in 1990.